Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday March 12, 2007 @07:58AM
from the all-those-letters-are-silent dept.

atamyrat reminds us that last November it was announced that the French Parliament had decided to switch to Linux. At that time the distro had not been determined. It will be Ubuntu: "[T]wo companies, Linagora and Unilog, have been selected to provide the members of the Parliament as well as their assistants new computers containing free software. This will amount to 1,154 new computers running Ubuntu prior to the start of the next session which occurs in June 2007."

It strikes me as a good distro for individuals new to Linux, but I personally would never deploy Ubuntu in a business or government setting. I would go for something a little more enterprise-ish, like Fedora, (Open)SUSE, or Debian.

I used Ubuntu for about a day. I found it to be childish and rudimentary. It didn't strike me as something professional or suitable for a working environment, but rather something that I would use in a school (elementary or middle/junior high) or at home for someone who is new to computing or new to Linux.

I must admit, though, that it's been about a year since I tried Ubuntu. Maybe it has changed. But I read the site around the time the last release (Fiesty Fawn, I think it was) came out and it didn't look like a lot had changed.

I came across with Wubi [cutlersoftware.com] - new Ubuntu installer for Windows. You don't have to burn CD nor create new partition.
From FAQ:

How does Wubi work?
Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the windows file system (c:\wubi\harddisks\ubuntu.hd), this file is seen by Linux as a real hard disk.How do I install Ubuntu?
Run wubi, answer the few questions, reboot and select "Ubuntu" from the boot menu, go grab a coffee and when you are back Ubuntu will be ready for you.How do I uninstall it?
You uninstall it as any other applications. In windows go to the control panel and select "Add or Remove Programs", then select Wubi and uninstall it. You can also use the uninstaller that you find in C:\wubi\uninstaller.exe.

I seem to recall, just a few years ago, Microsoft was declared in court as being a monopolist.Now as I understand it, that's not illegal as such. It is, however, to use a monopoly to manipulate other markets.

So, ever so quietly, Microsoft is supporting Linux in general up to the point where Microsoft can no longer be seen as a monopoly.

Then it can go back to its previous predatory practices, maniulate other markets merrily, and nobody can say a word.

I'll grant that as a rebuttal to the parent post, but the unfortunate truth in the U.S. is that a dramatic lack of historical scholarship and a distinct inability to grasp the nuances of the presence means that thousands of "decision-makers" around the country will look at this headline and say "well, if France is doing it, it must be anti-American since they support back invading Iraq". The fact that is was probably a smart call doesn't matter to people who's only worries are the three-month and six-month profit forecasts. Those decision-makers - many of whom have no excuse other than their own inadequacies - will see this as (optimistic) a ratification of Americanization and choose RedHat or (pessimistic) view it as yet another transgression by the neo-socialist liberals against the goodness of capitalism and choose Microsoft.

So far, Kubuntu (I like KDE, what can I say?) has been excellent as both a laptop and workstation platform, and I do have Ubuntu on a handful of servers. My personal choice would be Ubuntu/Kubuntu over just about anything else, and I applaud the decision and hope (uber-optimistically) that it's the beginning of this so-called tipping point for Linux on the desktop.

Who is modding down all critique of Ubuntu? I use Ubuntu every day, and it is really a immature* piece of shit.

Can you elaborate? Ubuntu provides a Usable desktop out of the box. Fedora and RHEL need a good amount of tweaking to get decent. Ie, the default Gnome config is rather bad and it's KDE needs to be replaced [sourceforge.net] to work adequately.

IMHO, the main area Ubuntu lacks is in configuration. It's a step backwards in that regard as it does require editing config files if the default doesn't cut it. Ie, if you need to change something with X you have to modify/etc/X11/xorg.conf wile Fedora/RHEL have system-config-display. This really needs to be addressed.

"France were quite content to look the other way on Saddam Hussein's atrocities because they had a nice trade relationship with him. They were widely criticized for this "cheese eating surrender monkey" approach."

1. Correction: they were widely criticized in the US.Americans were convinced that it was part of the war against terrorism while the Frenchmen were not. Do you remember these so called Al Qaeda bases in Iraq? Or these Iraqi chemical stocks, the mobile lab? The fake British report? I do. de Villepin speech was acclaimed by most foreign countries. I stil remember it.2. The US supported Saddam when he invaded Iran (just like France, Germany and countless of other western countries).3. Nobody reacted when he gazed Kurds in the 80's.4. Nobody tried to support the Shia uprising after the first Gulf war.

Of course the real US agenda was different (securing oil production, stabilization of the region, etc.) and the American agenda was in opposition with some French interests (French oil companies had secured extremely lucrative deal in Iraq prior to the invasion).

The US had a "grand vision" of the middle east (getting rid of dictators, bringing democracy and western values, securing this major oil source). the French government didn't share it and they wanted to protect their own interests. Both failed miserably.

Umm, Dapper isn't even the stable version, is it?edgy is not a long term support release, support for it will be discontinued in a relatively short timeframe and its reported to be ubuntus buggiest release to date.

You speak as though all the support options rested on the shoulders of Canonical, but that is simply not truedo any of those companies have the rescources and inclination to do thier own tracking on what security issues pertain to what ubuntu versions and backport those security fixes themselves if ubuntus long term support promises turn out to be hollow?